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Pamela Witherspoon was walking her Pomeranian like she did every night. She took her usual route past Hampton Cove park, and watched and listened to the rare spectacle of dozens of cats all gathering in the park’s playground and yowling up a storm.

Why they did this was anyone’s guess. People had wondered about the strange ritual for years, and even zoologists had studied the phenomenon and been left stumped.

No one knew exactly what drove all of these cats to gather in the same spot night after night and make these strange and frankly disturbing sounds.

Dirk Benedict, world-renowned zoologist and self-declared feline specialist, had suggested that it might have something to do with this particular spot. That perhaps located in the heart of the park was an ancient burial ground where the original inhabitants of Long Island had buried their cats, and now these modern-day cats, through some ancient wisdom, came together to honor the memory of their ancestors.

Others, like Laurence Tureaud, the famous ufologist, thought this was probably the spot where aliens would one day land, when and if they finally decided on their invasion, and cats, being the mystical creatures they are, acted as the harbingers of this doom.

And then of course there were the more exotic of explanations. Some people, most notable amongst whom the renowned geologist Dwight Schultz, claimed the earth’s crust was particularly thin in this exact spot, and the cats’ yowls were a way of communicating with their counterparts living in the earth’s core, which, still according to Mr. Schultz’s more outlandish musings, wasn’t solid iron and nickel, as most scientists agreed it was, but a large and complicated cave system where our counterparts live.

Pamela didn’t care one hoot about all of those theories. She quite enjoyed the spectacle, and thought it was pretty. Boomer, though, didn’t think it was pretty at all. On the contrary. The peppy little Pomeranian never stopped barking at the cats’ meows, which from time to time earned him a shoe aimed in his direction. Usually these shoes were meant for the cats, but Boomer sometimes happened to be collateral damage.

“Pretty, isn’t it, Boomer baby?” asked Pamela now.

“Woof, woof!” said Boomer in response.

“Don’t you wish you were a cat in moments like these, Boomer?” asked Pamela. “So you could sing along with the rest of your lovely little friends?”

“Warrrrrf!”

Pamela smiled. Oh, how she wished sometimes she could talk to her Boomer, and understand what he said. She was pretty sure he was the smartest doggie on the planet, and every bark that rolled from his lips a nugget of wisdom.

“My own precious little genius,” she said now, as she took a plastic baggie from her pocket and crouched down to clean up Boomer’s doo-doo.

There had been a rumor flying around about a new rule instigated by Chief Alec that dogs would have to use a litter box from now on, but so far she hadn’t heard any more.

And as she walked on, Boomer straining at the leash to get at those darn cats howling up a storm, she suddenly came upon a strange and frightening sight: a man was staggering in her direction, his arms outstretched, his fingers grasping the air!

Boomer, who’d noticed the same thing, now redirected his attention from the offending cats to the offending stranger.

And as the man reached the circle of light cast by a streetlamp, Pamela saw to her horror that his face was white as a sheet, and his skin was devastated by dozens of open sores covering its acreage. In fact it wasn’t too much to say that the man looked… dead!

She uttered an involuntary little yelp of fear as the man picked up his pace and moved in her direction, his clawing hands clearly yearning to grab hold of her!

“Come on, Boomer!” said Pamela as she turned on her heel and started walking away.

The man wasn’t deterred. As she glanced over her shoulder, she saw to her dismay he’d picked up his pace and was now stumbling after her, a lumbering quality to his gait.

“Run, Boomer, run!” Pamela yelled, and as she followed her own advice, they were soon running at a rapid clip, trying to escape the horrid and menacing creature.

And she’d just turned a corner when she almost bumped into a large and voluminous figure. To her not inconsiderable relief it was Chief Alec himself, Hampton Cove’s stalwart chief of police.

“Chief!” she cried. “Someone is chasing me!”

“Easy now, Pamela,” said the Chief in his easygoing and reassuring way. He was a man with very little hair left on top of his scalp, and a considerable paunch, and was loved by all Hampton Covians for his kindly demeanor and years of consistent selfless service.

The cop was glancing beyond her now, at the corner where any moment the stalker would appear.

“I was walking my Boomer, minding my own business, when suddenly I saw this horrible, horrible creature. And he must have seen me, too, for he immediately gave chase. Oh, Chief. Am I glad to see you!”